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My neighbourhood, Panorama Hills, is a typical Calgary suburb.
It boasts a confusing warren of similarly named streets, an endless parade of
double garages with houses attached, and neighbours you see only occasionally as
you pull in and out of the driveway.

It can be difficult to feel a sense of community in a place
like this. That is, unless something happens to shake you out of the suburban
haze.

For me it was last summer, when our house burned down.

A crowd gathered on the street out front, watching the fire.
I sat in a friend’s car with our two toddlers, praying that our next-door
neighbours would be ok — we had knocked and rung the doorbell, but there was no
answer.

Most people stood in silence, some taking photos and video. If
it weren’t my own house, I would’ve done the same. And really, there was
nothing anyone could do but wait for the fire department to come. The fire was
too big to contain. It was too late.

Someone knocked on the car window and I rolled it down. “Hi
there,” said a young man who looked about my age. “I live around the corner. I
heard that it was your house burning and that you have babies. We have diapers
and clothes, anything you need.”

It was a moment of kindness that I won’t forget.

A month later, while we were living in a rental home and starting
to put our lives back together, another neighbour tracked us down. We had never
spoken before, but she was so affected by our loss that she’d held a small
fundraiser at her work and collected hundreds of dollars in cash and gift cards
for our family.

There were no strings attached, just a gift of goodwill. She
didn’t even want my thanks.

And the family who lived next door — whose house caught fire
when our gas line blew — has shown us the sort of grace you can hardly bear.
How do you forgive someone for accidentally destroying your home? I don’t know,
but they have. And we are grateful.

It pains me now to admit that I once felt somewhat ashamed
of living in the suburbs. I had assumed that all those builder-beige houses contained
people who lacked imagination and didn’t really care about what kind of
neighbourhood we live in.
But what I’ve discovered is that a community can be built in
an instant, in the most unexpected circumstances. And it grows through offers of help, gifts of
grace, shared struggles — and a common hope for a place that feels like home.

Yes, Teresa, we do all want a "place that feels like home" with friends, neighbors who smile and say "hello, how're you doing?" and mean it.
Shared experiences , as you've described so well, are what make life worthwhile-a sense of belonging and being cared about. i was moved by your story-April Lea Klatte, Nelson, BC

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Renee Bender
posted
2013-05-16 5:57pm

What an amazing, touching story. Some people would be broken by an experience like this but you have found something meaningful in it and have shared it in such a creative, powerful way with us.

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Marco Pringle
posted
2013-04-24 12:19pm

Theresa, I loved hearing this story when you told it at the CM Beercamp, but it was great to hearing you share it again this morning on the Eyeopener.

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Zoey Duncan
posted
2013-04-23 12:46pm

This is beautiful, Teresa. Thanks for sharing and showing us all a little bit of what's behind the beige in the suburbs.

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Karen Styles
posted
2013-04-20 10:57pm

Wow. Thanks for sharing this, Teresa.

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My daily commute is like a small gear of mechanical time, of epicycles upon epicycles, where days turn to months and to years, and the seasons cycle through. The rhythms of time are constant, but the changes they bring are not.